The commercial cod fishery in Newfoundland and Labrador was once the most successful in the world. When it collapsed in 1992 - causing the largest single-day layoff in Canadian history and irrevocable ecological damage - fishermen, scholars, and scientists pointed to failures in management such as uncontrolled harvesting and not taking fishermen's concerns into account as likely culprits.

Examining the history of commercial cod fisheries in Newfoundland and Labrador from the mid-nineteenth century to the aftermath of the cod moratorium, Managed Annihilation makes the case that...